The project's objective is to develop a theory and dynamic computer model of community support system functioning. Community support systems are viewed as interactive, time varying systems which interact with client, state hospital and financing systems. Because such systems are complex and dynamic computer models are uniquely suited to assisting in their planning, management and evaluation. The model proposed would have both an optimization and a simulation module. The former would allocate patients to programs given goals (e.g. maximizing census reduction) and constraints (e.g. amount of money available). The later would simulate the effects of these allocations given specified outcome probabilities. Alternative strategies for developing community support systems can be explored re: their consequences for clients, their costs and their cost-effectiveness for given periods of time. It will be necessary to describe as completely as possible how community support systems function, write certain computer programs, collect data on program costs and client movements and go through iterations of testing and recalibrating the model. This project will contribute to community support system planning, management and evaluation, provide a demonstration of the applicability of operations research to mental health, and contribute to social science theory and methodology.